UPDATED: HCS Varsity Football Sidelined for 2010; District Offers Details

RFH 2010, HCS News

Tue, Aug 17, 2010

The outcome of the annual Jug Game between HCS and Morrisville-Eaton is already known: the Emerald Knights won't win it.

In fact, HCS will win no varsity football games this season because it will not be playing any. The program is on hiatus as of Monday evening.

"We are all very disappointed for the kids that wanted to play," said HCS Superintendent Dr. Diana Bowers.

HCS was one of the only Class D schools to field both football and boys soccer teams.

The team reportedly held one practice session Monday. Before the second session of the day last evening, a team meeting was held after which it was decided not to play this season at the varsity level.

The sidelining of the program is a question of numbers, and has nothing to do with financial issues.

The decision to not play really began when the 2009 season ended. The Emerald Knights went 1-6 in the regular season and ended the year with the state minimum of 16 players.

Between then and now, HCS opened up the program to students from Madison and Brookfield. Brookfield decided not to allow its students to play for HCS.

HCS has experienced declining numbers not just of football players, but students in general.

Part of the slide for the football program can be traced to the rise of the HCS soccer program. After struggling in its early years, it went on to become one of the best in the region if not the state. In recent seasons there have been several football players switch to playing soccer.

At least one HCS player will be suiting up for what would have been the competition this year. Senior Coley Graham (the quarterback in the photo) is moving to Cooperstown and will play for the Redskins, a team that was on the Emerald Knights' schedule this year. Graham was one of the standouts for HCS last season.

The complete statement from the HCS website:

For the past few years the HCS Athletic Department has been watching the number of students that signed up for football with some degree of concern. The number of students that were joining football instead of boy's soccer was slowly declining. Last spring the numbers were so low, Bill Dowsland and Coach LePage looked for additional players to play with our team. A number of students from the Madison and Brookfield School Districts showed interest. With the additional students we thought we had more than enough players to field a Varsity Football Team safely.

Last Thursday, the team assembled for the first time since spring. Only 12 Varsity players showed for the meeting, including the students from the Madison School District. Bill Dowsland and Joe LePage looked for options to the numbers issue and decided to call up players from our Modified Team. This would allow the Varsity Team to play. Yesterday was our first football practice of the season. Despite the herculean efforts of both Bill Dowsland and Joe LePage, the numbers were still too few to run a viable Varsity Football Team.

We are truly disappointed that we will not be running our football program this year. We understand how meaningful extra-curricular activities are for our students. We hope our students will opt to take part in another sport or extra-curricular activity so they remain involved in healthy activities. All other HCS teams will take the field this fall as long as the student numbers allow it to occur. We look forward to being part of their season.

(Please note: it is common practice for students to join teams from other small districts to give them an opportunity to play a sport that is not offered in their districts. HCS has been combining with several districts for many years. Some of our HCS students play with outside districts and we accept students on our teams when it's possible. Also, we are one of the few districts our size that run more than one sport, per season, for both boy's and girls. We will continue to do so as long as the student participation allows this to occur in this difficult fiscal climate.)

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